Farm wars: DC battle over Farm Bill has implications at home

Congressman vary on views of why Farm Bill fell apart in 2012 and its prospects for 2013

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By Taylor Muller/@TaylorMullerKDE

Kirksville Daily Express - Kirksville, MO

By Taylor Muller/@TaylorMullerKDE

Posted Jan. 26, 2013 at 12:00 PM

By Taylor Muller/@TaylorMullerKDE
Posted Jan. 26, 2013 at 12:00 PM

Kirksville

Disagreements over how much and where to cut have put a long-term Farm Bill on hold in Washington as Missouri farmers and producers grapple with the temporary extension that does not provide any assurances or program support beyond its September deadline.

In what had previously been supported by a rural and urban alliance, the massive $500 billion collection of policies, programs and laws that govern and influence food, agriculture, conservation and energy has become a hostage in the back-and-forth arguments of spending versus revenue, Democrats versus Republicans and previously-allied rural versus urban interests.

That previously strong bond and alliance between rural and urban lawmakers over the Farm Bill, which is comprised of the nation’s nutrition programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as well as components like crop insurance and milk subsidies, has dissolved since the last passage of the bill in 2008.

In the five years since, Washington has become deadlocked in partisan arguments and disagreements over how to best make cuts to programs like the Farm Bill, two Missouri Congressmen said.

“There’s an interesting dynamic taking place,” said U.S. Rep. Sam Graves (R-6). “We used to have a coalition of city and rural lawmakers.”

As Graves explained, rural lawmakers were largely concerned with the preservation of the farm aspects while urban lawmakers focused on maintaining the nutrition portion, which includes food stamps and assistance like Women, Infants and Children program as well as the federal school lunch program.

And of the half-trillion dollar bill, about 80 percent is comprised of the nutrition aspects, a fact Graves emphasizes as he argues the cuts must be made proportionally and not come down heavily on the agriculture side.

And while the extension approved as part of the “fiscal cliff” talks extended the previous program through the end of the federal government’s year on Sept. 30, it did little to provide farmers or nutrition recipients with long-term assurances beyond 2013.

“We’re working to find a compromise,” Graves said. “This [extension] buys us more time to build that coalition back.”

One of Graves’ fellow Congressman and one of the urban representatives he referred to, U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-5) of Kansas City said it is his view that a failed understanding of the bill’s impacts and any potential cuts that has prevented the Farm Bill’s passage to this point.

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Cleaver protested the urban versus rural comparison, saying he believed it is important for constituents to understand there is a connection between the cities and the farms and nutrition and rural programs.

“Contrary to what people may believe, the nutrition program has participants in all rural areas of the United States,” he said. “What we’ve got to do is look for opportunities to have mutual interest and legislation as opposed to ways we will fight.”

Cleaver said he opposes any major cuts to SNAP benefits or the federal school lunch program because it will hurt people, not just city or rural residents.

“Those kind of cuts would hurt needy families and hurt active farmers at the same time,“ he said.

But Graves argued that evenly splitting $30 billion in cuts, with $15 billion coming from both nutrition and agriculture programs, would be the most fair.

“In the nutrition program, food stamps [definitely can be cut],” he said. “They’ve tripled in four years. What we’re talking about, cutting it back $16 billion, will not gut the program by any extent.”

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of SNAP beneficiaries increased from about 28 million in 2008 to about 46.5 million in 2012. Dollar-wise, the program has ballooned from about $37 billion in 2008 to about $78 billion in 2012.

Locally, at least one measure of the county’s reliance on those programs is in the number of individuals provided for through Adair County’s Women, Infants and Children program. Locally, the WIC program provides nutrition assistance for 689 women, infants and children monthly and 8,268 such individuals annually.

“What takes place in rural areas and what takes place in cities, in many ways it’s the same issue,” Cleaver said. “We have poor people who need this food bill to pass. Everybody is talking about a need to cut spending and I agree with anyone who says we have to figure out ways to cut spending and I will vote to cut spending even in programs I feel strongly about if it will allow us to have a balanced approach to the problems in this country.”

Graves expressed a similar issue, extending a willingness to talk cuts to programs like defense spending and other federal agencies.

“We just can’t keep expanding these programs. Everything is on the table and we have to prioritize,” he said. “There is no reason why the Department of Defense can’t do a better job of its spending, too. There’s waste in every other agency out there.”

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Leading up to 2013, the U.S. Senate passed its portion of the Farm Bill, approving the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012 which calls for about $23 billion in cuts, but the House failed to come to an agreement after calling for $30 billion in cuts.

And despite a GOP majority in the House, Graves said he believed if the measure were to come to the floor for a vote, it would likely see the removal of the agriculture portion from the bill.

“There’s a good chance we could lose the farm portion all together,” he said.

Beyond straight cuts to the programs, Graves spoke in favor of replacing portions of the agriculture program with a revamped crop insurance program, a vital part of the measure for rural residents in need of some promise of protection from the elements.

“It has to work,” Graves said of the program. “The problem with crop insurance in the past is that it didn’t work for all commodities. That includes corn and soybeans but you‘re also talking nationwide, needs to protect things like sorghum, cranberries, nuts and all our vegetable crops. Trying to come up with an insurance program that works is very tough.”

But having the current crop insurance program in place through September is better than nothing, said Doug Thomas, an Adair County row cropper and cattle rancher.

“With the weather we’ve had in the last few years, a huge part of our program is that crop insurance,” he said. “It’s a program we pay into and we need it to be affordable and need to know what it’s going to be so we can make those plans and put it into a budget.”

Operated privately but with rates established by the government, the crop insurance program provides some level of protection from droughts, floods and other natural disasters.

“It’s something you don’t want to use, but it can cover the input costs so you can move forward to another year,” Thomas said. “With volume of money it takes to run agriculture, we like the security it provides.”

At least for now, with the Farm Bill extension, Missouri farmers and producers will operate under the same programs and rules they had from 2008 to 2012, but with slow going in proceedings and a still-looming debate over the federal debt ceiling, prospects for a Farm Bill appear uncertain.

“With the fiscal cliff, we’re pushing everything down the road,” Thomas said. “I don’t think anyone thinks that is a good idea.”